


The Cherry Tree's Revenge

by ephemeralblossom



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, ToT: Extra Trick, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-25 11:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralblossom/pseuds/ephemeralblossom
Summary: “I bought you a cherry tree,” the man says. “We’ll plant it behind the garden.”





	The Cherry Tree's Revenge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labocat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/gifts).



“I bought you a cherry tree,” the man says. “We’ll plant it behind the garden.”

The woman is young, her cheeks full of roses, the toddler on her hip curly-headed and babbling. “You’re so thoughtful. I love cherries,” she says, and kisses him, as their daughter yowls to be put down so she can chase the cat. 

The cherry tree lies on the ground, ready for planting, and waits patiently for its roots to be placed in the earth, there to delve and make a home. It is a strong sapling, ready to find its place in the world, anxious to spread its branches and begin its march towards the sky. 

The man plants the cherry tree that night, in the darkness. The cherry tree is surprised; in its young life to date, it has generally observed that humans sleep in the dark hours. But the man is not asleep. Nor is the cherry tree the only thing to be planted that night, behind the herb garden with its straggles of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. The man enlarges the hole that had been dug, widens and deepens it, his soft grunts of effort eerie in the quiet of the night. At last he brings something in a wheelbarrow and tips it into the hole. Then another wheelbarrow trip, another something.

When the man lifts the sapling, carefully lowering and steadying it so that it will grow straight and tall, it sees what will share its home. If it had a mouth, it would cry out. The woman was so young, and so happy; now her rose-dappled cheeks are white and chalky, her eyes staring sightlessly at the stars. Next to her lies a man, a stranger to the cherry tree, just as young, just as silent.

The man shovels dirt over the cherry tree’s roots, and over what lies beneath them. 

He goes inside, back to the sleeping toddler with her mother’s eyes.

***

The cherry tree grows.

It does not want to draw succour from the bodies buried beneath it. It remembers the way the woman tossed her daughter in the air, laughing, the same daughter who now builds mud-castles in the garden dirt. It is not cruel, like the man who pretends all is well, teaching his daughter how to play hopscotch on the deck. It is not human.

But neither can it change its nature, and its roots must establish themselves.

***

In the spring, when the world wakes from the cold, the woman wakes with it.

Oh, she is no longer alive. Her body is a broken thing, hidden beneath the earth, embraced by the cherry tree’s roots and the strange man who shares her resting place. But existence is sometimes mystical; and in the liminal space between here and the hereafter, she walks in the night.

She goes ever to the same place, the window of her daughter’s bedroom, and watches her sleep. Night after night, month after month. The seasons change, the toddler grows, and her mother keeps her vigil. 

Years pass. The cherry tree grows tall and stout. Its fruit becomes pies in the capable hands of the man’s new wife, or is eaten fresh by the daughter, her mouth stained cherry-red. She runs shrieking through the back yard, pursued by the water-pistols of her school-friends, and climbs barefoot in the tree’s spreading branches, and sits braced against the tree’s trunk with her math homework in her lap. She is a lively girl, and there are roses in her cheeks. 

The mother keeps her nightly vigil. 

The daughter is a teenager now. Some nights she sneaks out to meet a school friend, and the mother watches for her safe return. No one has ever seen the mother’s wraith, except the cherry tree; the daughter does not see her mother’s relieved sigh when she returns, bidding her friend goodbye with a stolen kiss under the stars. 

The stepmother’s hands hurt these days. Arthritis, she says. The teenager volunteers to plant the herb garden, at the cherry tree’s feet. She sings as she pulls weeds. She has a beautiful voice, and the cherry tree remembers watching her mother sing as she washed the dinner dishes, the night before they were planted. 

The daughter finishes school. There is a graduation party in the back yard, with streamers hung from the cherry tree’s branches. An older woman leans against the trunk, and observes to the air that the daughter’s mother would have loved to see this day. “Wherever you are,” she says, “whatever happened, I hope you’re looking down on her.” The daughter is laughing, over by the deck, her father standing proud and tall at the grill.

The mother is watching in the early morning when the daughter leaves for college, rushing out the door with her suitcases to catch a pre-dawn flight. 

The herb garden is pulled out. There is no vigil now. The mother still walks at night, but she is a lost soul, her wraith wispier and fainter. Without her love for her daughter to bind her to the earth, she is beginning to fade. The cherry tree, who loves her, wishes her peace.

The stepmother still picks the cherries, though she is growing old and the pruning is difficult for her. She takes rests, her hand pressed into the small of her back. The cherry tree watches the way the man watches her, and begins to be afraid. 

The seasons pass. 

The daughter returns. The mother jolts back to the land of the living, pressing her nose against the window in a desperate attempt to be as close to her child as possible. The stepmother raises her head, startled; she shakes herself, as if someone walked over her grave. 

It is the daughter’s wedding day, and her bridal bouquet is cherry blossoms. “I’ve always loved this tree,” she tells her fiancée, stroking the cherry tree’s bark. “And trying to have a wedding on a shoestring budget may be en vogue right now, but it doesn’t leave much space for florists!”

The cherry tree willingly surrenders blossoms, and wishes it could do more for its child, the laughing toddler who has grown into a strong sapling. It rustles its branches, and spreads all the blessings it can over the brides’ heads. They will have to make their own way in the world now, as the cherry tree did, so many years ago. They will have to put their own roots down, and grow stout and tall together. 

The cherry tree hopes the seasons will be good to them. It watches them walk out of the yard together, arm in arm, towards all their tomorrows.

That night, the mother stands on the lawn, her head tipped back, gazing at the stars. 

Then she lays herself down among the cherry tree’s roots, and goes to sleep. 

The cherry tree’s heart would ache, if it was human and had a heart. It has lost its loves, both in one day. The world is the same as it was this morning, and yet it is darker. There will be no more wraith on the lawn, no more girlish laughter. Only the cherry tree, alone with the secret it hides.

***

Another year passes, and it is spring again.

The stepmother walks slowly now, and takes many rests. There is something wrong with her, with the way her body moves, like a tree which has begun to rot, when one storm might topple it entirely. The cherry tree watches the way the man looks at her, and thinks there is something wrong in his eyes as well. 

One day he brings home a rosebush. 

“I don’t have the energy, sweetheart,” the stepmother says. “I’m sorry. It’s a lovely thought.”

“Oh no,” the man says. “I didn’t mean for you to put yourself out. I’ll do all the work. I know you love roses. We’ll put a bench next to the bush, and you can sit out there with a book and enjoy them.”

The stepmother tells him he’s so sweet, and kisses him.

That afternoon he comes out with a shovel, and begins to dig the hole for the rosebush. It will be a neighbour to the cherry tree, and the cherry tree watches as the hole gets bigger. 

The stepmother makes lemonade, and brings him a glass when he takes a break from digging. He is older now, and the digging takes him longer. Then she goes back inside and begins to wash the dishes, singing as she scrubs. 

The cherry tree watches her sing. It watches the man dig.

Then it smiles. 

Or perhaps a cherry tree cannot smile, for it is not human. But it stretches its branches into the spring breeze, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on its blossoms. It lets a few blossoms fall onto the secret resting place at its base, a last benediction. _A good life_ , it thinks. _A good growing. I have been a stout tree._

Then the cherry tree begins to rip up its roots, calmly and surely. 

It disentangles its roots from the bones beneath it. It pulls itself free from the ground, bit by bit, and tips its branches up towards the sun as it feels gravity beginning to help. Not long now. Not long at all.

At the last moment the man senses danger and looks up from his digging, but it is too late.

The cherry tree falls. 

Its senses will soon fade, but it hears the stepmother scream and come running, ungainly and painful. She shrieks the man’s name, falls to her knees beside him. She scrabbles in her apron pocket for her phone and calls for help.

The cherry tree knows help will not come in time. It has made sure of that. 

Then the stepmother sees the bones, tangled in the cherry tree’s roots.

***

It is the next day when the daughter arrives. She holds her stepmother in her arms and lets her weep on her shoulder.

The daughter’s wife comes to stand by the wreck of the cherry tree. She runs her fingers along the branches. “Thank you,” she whispers, into the air.

The cherry tree smiles, and closes its eyes.

***


End file.
